How does mentoring female MSLs increase their confidence?
Confidence is increased by empowering them to work more efficiently, encouraging them to negotiate when necessary, helping them set boundaries, and letting them know it is okay to not be a superwoman despite the perception that perfection is success.
You know this saying, “behind every great man, there’s a great women.” We would like to rephrase this and say “behind every great female leader, there is a great mentor.”
Please provide best practice for setting up mentorship program.
Successful mentoring programs incorporate these key aspects: clear delineation of program goals and expectations for mentors and mentees, careful selection and pairing of mentors and mentees, holding both mentor and mentee accountable for the relationship’s success, recognition for mentors who make a difference and a timeline with a beginning and end of the formal mentoring relationship.
How do you gauge success? By organizational follow-up; outcome survey data that lead to developing and implementing best practices.
Please describe how mentoring female MSLs is different to male MSLs?
The overarching concept that comes to mind when we talk about a successful female MSL is ‘work life balance’. How does she do it? There is no one size fits all. We believe that mentoring female MSLs gives mentors a unique opportunity to empower mentees to as Sheryl Sandberg says take a seat at the table.
Please tell us more about the new MSL Society mentorship program?
The MSL Mentor/Mentee program is a unique program across the Pharma industry offered through the MSL Society. Since the program is both group and one-on-one session mixed, it allows the mentees to not only build a vertical relationship between a mentor and a mentee but also allows the mentees to build a lateral network with their peers. The gem of this is that it reinforces, we are in it all together to ultimately benefit our patients. More information is available at the link below.
Copyright 2013-2018 The Medical Science Liaison Society. All rights reserved. The information contained in this article may not be published, broadcast or otherwise distributed without prior written authorization. The MSL Society is a 501(c)(3) Non-Profit Organization dedicated to advancing the global MSL career.